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Friday, December 28, 2007

Blogpost 250: The things we do

This is Blogpost No. 250!Opinions 24x7 began in February 2007 with a dream: a dream to awaken freedom on the World's Largest Democracy: the Internet. From sticking to political analysis, OTFS has covered genres ranging from movie reviews, event reviews, on-ground reports and even a special guest column from Vennela.

So why are we doing all this?Because we have to. Freedom can never be curbed. Freedom is not given: men are born free. An Opinion is, after all, and expression of freedom.

It was in September this year that we hit 100 posts. Now, we have come to another milestone of 250 posts. The period in between has been critical for the development of OTFS.

In September, we furiously updated our SC 24x7 series. Further, we've included a few editorials and even declared our support for an Indian Idol contestant! We also did our first-ever spoof: we interviewed Counselor Mrs. Uma and learned how she joined Sri Chaitanya.

October saw 47 posts: the highest in any month as of the time this post was written. We launched our Weekly Quiz series, but sadly, we had to temporarily discontinue it due to technical constraints. However, in the second or third week on January, we will have another edition of it. Also in the same month, we posted our first and to-date only post from GMail. Our Business Desk also kept tabs on the market movements as Q2 ended. With the Dassera Holidays, we went into overdrive by declaring IBNLive.com as the OTFS Web Awards Best site of the Year, against its rival NDTV.com, and also launching Inside NTSE: our series on the National Talent Search Exam. We celebrated the launch of NDTV Arabia and declared our interest in Kyle XY!

November was arguably the most important month for OTFS. We had a guest column movie review of OSO, a game review and a guest-video from Harsha. Most importantly, we announced the 2007 Opinions 24x7 Indian of the Year Awards. We also celebrated the announcement of NDTV Imagine, criticised the Vice Principal's policies on JIIT1 and reveled in Calvin and Hobbes!

In December, we earnestly took up the OTFS Editorial series, to go back to the original spirit with which this blog was started. Furthermore, we announced the nominated categories for the 2007 Opinions 24x7 Indian of the Year Awards. The remainder of the awards are non-competitive i.e., there will not be any nominees, but the winner will be chosen on overall merit. The final results will come out in January 2008.

We also mourned the assassination (now supposed accidental death) of Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto. From an epitaph to her name to a discussion on the future of the nation, OTFS covered the story as it happened. Finally, we reviewed Angelina Jolie-starer Beowulf, reviewed the 2007 BVBPS Sports Day and wrote a poem in memory of those jailed in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

A distinctive feature of the blog over these months is that we have started changing our logo to fit events. We've had three special logos so far: one on International AIDS Day, one on climate change and the last one for Christmas. Indeed, our Christmas 2007 series was one of our most joyous: from carols to logos to plum cakes: OTFS had the Christmas spirit in it!

So has all this been worth it? Well, our ballot sheets are empty: since we decided NOT to use Google AdSense to put this blog on the market, we're non-profit, non-earning! But we've gained a lot: 5000 visitors, and counting, and that's only for half of our existence! Since we've used up only 4MB of our 1024 MB space, we needn't purchase anything for the blog. Perhaps, when we do use up all 1024 MB (and that's a long time away), we'll go commercial. Till then, quality is all we care for.

As we prepare to take OTFS through another year of turmoil - and 2008 promises to be difficult - we set ourselves the target of 500 Posts by the end of 2008. Till then, an we're prepared to hear the other side. That's democracy. That's freedom. That's Opinions 24x7.